<p>The introduction of BW wasn't too kind to Gallade; not only did he not gain much in the way of moveset options, he missed out on essentially the Holy Grail of Fighting STAB: Hi Jump Kick. Gallade also suffers from his relatively low base 80 Speed, being outrun by other common Fighting-types such as Lucario and Infernape. Fortunately, Gallade is unique in that he has access to Will-O-Wisp and Shadow Sneak, which differentiates it from Lucario, and resists Stealth Rock, unlike Infernape. In addition, Gallade also boasts an impressive base 125 Attack and 115 base Special Defense, which allows him to sponge most neutral special attacks and hit back hard. Possibly Gallade's best niche, though, is his ability to run a fairly viable Bulk Up + Drain Punch set, taking advantage of his excellent Special Defense. All things considered, Gallade is not to be underestimated.</p>

<p>This is possibly the best set Gallade can run. With his amazing special bulk, Gallade can easily find an opportunity to Bulk Up. With the given EV spread he easily survives super effective special attacks such as Gengar's Shadow Ball and subsequently finishes it off with a Shadow Sneak. Drain Punch allows for instant HP recovery in addition to Leftovers. After one Bulk Up, Gallade reaches a huge 444 Attack, punching holes in almost anything. Ice Punch breaks most Gliscor after a Bulk Up, while Stone Edge protects Gallade against any Gyarados that might get greedy. Shadow Sneak provides insurance against Ghost-types and Latios, as well as generally leaving a dent in faster enemies.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>This set can also be run with an alternate EV spread of 240 HP / 16 Atk / 56 SpD / 196 Spe, allowing Gallade to outrun most Gliscor, along with Jolly Tyranitar and Adamant Breloom; however, this spread sacrifices considerable special bulk, greatly reducing Gallade's survivability. You could also replace Shadow Sneak with Substitute or Thunder Wave in the last slot if you want to try and stall out your opponent.</p>

<p>With 240 EVs in HP, Gallade reaches the point of maximum Leftovers recovery without wasting EVs. The 216 EVs in Special Defense allow Gallade to tank special hits, most notably Gengar's Shadow Ball, while 40 EVs in Attack allow him to 2HKO Gengar with Shadow Sneak after Stealth Rock damage. It follows, then, that Gallade appreciates a teammate that can set up Stealth Rocks.</p>

<p>As with all physical attackers, Gallade has great trouble with status afflictions, most notably burn. Jellicent in particular tends to mess Gallade up rather badly, taking little damage from Shadow Sneak and responding with Will-O-Wisp, further reducing Gallade's attacking power. Gallade greatly appreciates a fast special attacker, such as Jolteon or Hydreigon, to come in, take the burn, and deal with Jellicent appropriately.</p>

<p>This set made the jump to BW with very few changes. After just one Swords Dance, Gallade's Attack reaches a towering 766, allowing him to wreak havoc with STAB Close Combat. As with the previous set, the third slot depends on user preference; Ice Punch saves face against Gliscor and Landorus, whereas Stone Edge repels Thundurus and Gyarados. If preferred, Gallade can run this set with a Jolly nature to boost his mediocre Speed; however, this causes Gallade to lose some of his offensive ability, a drop that is greatly felt given Gallade's physical frailty.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>While Gallade is starved for more power, Life Orb recoil piles up after only a couple of turns. As such, it is advisable to run a Wish passer alongside Gallade, preferably a bulky one like Vaporeon or Blissey. Vaporeon is fairly good at surviving physical attacks, while Blissey needs no introduction; her insane HP and Special Defense make her the ideal candidate to team with Gallade on more balanced teams.</p>

<p>Gallade could conceivably replace one of the above moves with Psycho Cut to hit Poison-types, especially Gengar, for more damage; however, Gallade rarely finds room for it, since Ice Punch / Stone Edge provides vital type coverage, and Shadow Sneak is almost required to ensure Gallade can at least get a hit in before fainting.</p>

[Other Options]

<p>As mentioned above, Psycho Cut is certainly viable on any of the above sets, but it requires the sacrifice of one of Gallade's greatly-needed coverage moves. Gallade has access to Wish via breeding; unfortunately, the move's new mechanics combined with Gallade's relatively low HP means it is not a very viable strategy, and the move is better left to more beefy Pokemon.</p>

<p>On the other hand, Gallade does get access to a few interesting support moves, such as Mean Look, Taunt, and Magic Coat, as well as Thunder Wave, Toxic, and Will-o-Wisp, allowing it to potentially run an odd "anti-lead" set. With the disappearance of true leads from the BW metagame, though, this type of set is less useful than in DPP.</p>

[Checks and Counters]

<p>The easiest way to counter Gallade is to hit it with a powerful physical move. With only two weaknesses--one of which is rarely seen--Gallade can be a nightmare to take down, especially if it's running Bulk Up and Drain Punch on the same set. Faster Ghost-types like Gengar do get a bit of a leg up on the green gladiator though, assuming they survive a boosted Shadow Sneak. Gallade also hates priority users such as Scizor, who deals hefty damage with a Choice Band-boosted Bullet Punch. The best counter to Gallade is status. If Jellicent can quickly land a Will-o-Wisp, it easily survives a Shadow Sneak and can proceed to stall. If Ghost-types and/or status inducers aren't an option, try an Excadrill, which, under sandstorm and using Sand Force, can 2HKO Gallade through a Bulk Up boost with Earthquake.</p>

[Dream World]
<p>Justice Heart, Gallade's Dream World ability, gives him a nice one stage Attack boost every time he survives a Dark-type attack. On the whole, this ability will be fairly valuable once released; it can be used on either set to stack with Gallade's self-induced boosts.</p>

Your Trick Room set doesn't have Trick Room on it, and Choice Band is a horrible item choice for a Pokemon with Trick Room anyway. And the set you currently have posted wouldn't be walled by Shandera because it can OHKO with Stone Edge and attack it for neutral damage with Psycho Cut.

Eheh, I see you like Gallade a fair bit. :p I've done the analysis of Gardevoir, if you want to have a look. This looks pretty solid; it's a shame that he doesn't get anything but a substandard dream world ability but I'm sure that Gallade might have more use this gen then we've seen yet. It might be worth emphasising the many support options that he gains from Gardevoir. After all, he's pretty much the only Fighting type or even physical attacker that knows Wish, Heal Bell or Will-O-Wisp. A Fighter that knows Heal Bell could be an interesting niche.

@Forte: I excluded Trick Room from Gallade's set because it's negative priority, and Gallade doesn't usually survive long enough to set it up anyway. I included a note in the comments about Gallade needing a bulky Pokemon to set it up. However, I do take your point about Choice Band and Shandera; Life Orb might be better, and when I typed that bit about Shandera I was thinking Dream World play, where Shandy gets Shadow Tag. Will change both now.

@GtM: That's part of why I like Gallade so much: it's one of those that kind of takes you by surprise. You're expecting a Close Combat, so you switch to Gengar, when all of a sudden, Thunder Wave. As far as Heal Bell goes, it is an interesting option, but has little competitive use on a Gallade set (see above note about Trick Room). I may experiment with it a bit, though; if it works, I'll add a Heal Bell set.

@stellar: Drain Punch isn't on there because I figured a Bulk Up Roobushin does a better job with it than Gallade would. In addition, Close Combat has a much higher BP (120 compared to Drain Punch's 75), and for that reason it should always be used as the Fighting STAB.

I wouldn't completely discount Drain Punch; the recovery can help offset passive damage, and can really make the user hard to kill.

On the other hand though, Gallade does have some pretty meh defensive stats, unlike Ropushin and the Pantslizard (Zuruzugin? Kin?), so it might not prove to be as effective. Maybe list it as an optional change?

I agree with TEA DEMON, Shadow Sneak should at least be slashed onto the SD set as the priority is helpful for faster mons. Thunderwave is an other option on the SD set to allow him to outspeed as much as possible and support the team.

On the TR set, Brave should be used over Adamant as the loss of speed is beneficial.

I agree with Galladiator that a Drain Punch set is outclassed to an extent by Roobushin, but Gallade does have decent Special Defense, which works well with Bulk Up and Drain Punch (in my experience). Anyway, is an anti-lead set still viable? Gallade does have access to Magic Coat.

Just wanna point out, your link in the OP takes you to Gallade's D/P/Plat/HG/SS Dex page, not its B/W page.

He did get Heal Beam in his level-up movepool for doubles, but as it pertains to singles, yeah, he didn't really get much. :0 I hope he drops all the way to UU this time around, he wasn't quite doing enough in OU, and he could really do well in UU.

Edit: I like the idea of a lead set with Shadow Sneak and Magic Coat. Seconding.

Gallade might be able to emulate roobushin fairly well now that drain punch is useable:

Gallade @ leftovers
Careful nature
236 HP/20 Def/252 SpDef
Steadfast

Bulk up
Drain punch
?
?

This thing has more support options than blissey!

Tweak the set as you wish, but wish/pain split might be a good choice. Max special defense and 336 hp (lefties number) + bulk up and will-o-wisp could make him a decent wall. Priority shadow sneak should not be overlooked, and could be really good for stuff like shandera. Calm mind, destiny bond, hypnosis, twave..... hell, gallades sheer unpredictability alone makes it a solid choice. Adamant scarfer, togekiss switchin, double statuser, wishpasser, mean look stat upper, snatcher, calm minder........

I agree with Galladiator that a Drain Punch set is outclassed to an extent by Roobushin, but Gallade does have decent Special Defense, which works well with Bulk Up and Drain Punch (in my experience)

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Call me a noob but when I needed a Fighting resist on my team I used Bulk Up Gallade when Bulk Up Roobushin was on my team... Roobishin is better and since I don't need the fighting resist I dropped him from my team... I still think A moveset of Drain Punch, Payback/Shadow Claw/Night Slash, Bulk Up, and Substitute COULD be used by a better player...

Shouldnt Thunder Wave be taken off the Trick Room Status set? If you're running a Trick Room team, or just a pokemon to abuse Trick Room, wouldnt paralyzing the enemy and making them slower work against you?

There is so many possibilities with gallade... his movepool is awesome and can be totally unpredictable.

I think Ninjask teamed up with Gallade is a force to be reckoned with. Gallade does have crappy speed but ninjask can fix 80 base speed pretty easily and gallade isn't quite as slow as other sweepers such as tyranitar and scizor...

There is two ways I think you could sweep really well with this combo and ninjask sets up gallade perfectly, with speed and attack. But first you need a ninjask with swords dance and and baton pass and substitute.

1. the first set is for a survivor Gallade:
adament 252 Atk/(divide up the rest with Def and Hp)

Drain Punch
Psycho Cut/Ice Punch
Shadow Sneak
Swords Dance/Bulk up

This set is meant to keep gallade alive and really abuse the new improved drain punch. Just send ninjask in first and depending on who the enemy is stall with substitute so that ninjask can pass on its speed or just one swords dance might be enough to pass on with +1 speed.

2. The second set is a more reckless, hard-hitting Gallade
Jolly 252 Speed/252 Atk

This set is all about super effective hits and speed, if ninjask stalls enough with substitute then Gallade will be off to a good start. However Gallade doesn't have swords dance so Ninjask is the only one able to up Gallade's Attack. So you would have to be smart when switching in Gallade and if you should risk keeping ninjask in long enough and trying to pull off a swords dance, and when you do switch in gallade he isn't nearly as sturdy as the previous set so he can be knocked out easily.

I Really like the first set and it makes Gallade sturdy enough and self sufficient with Drain punch

Gallade might be able to emulate roobushin fairly well now that drain punch is useable:

Gallade @ leftovers
Careful nature
236 HP/20 Def/252 SpDef
Steadfast

Bulk up
Drain punch
?
?

This thing has more support options than blissey!

Tweak the set as you wish, but wish/pain split might be a good choice. Max special defense and 336 hp (lefties number) + bulk up and will-o-wisp could make him a decent wall. Priority shadow sneak should not be overlooked, and could be really good for stuff like shandera. Calm mind, destiny bond, hypnosis, twave..... hell, gallades sheer unpredictability alone makes it a solid choice. Adamant scarfer, togekiss switchin, double statuser, wishpasser, mean look stat upper, snatcher, calm minder........

Click to expand...

I don't know about Calm Mind, as Gallade's Special Attack isn't worth a pile of dog shit, but point taken. I've already made my stance clear as far as Drain Punch goes; Conkledurr does it a million and a half times better.

I think Ninjask teamed up with Gallade is a force to be reckoned with. Gallade does have crappy speed but ninjask can fix 80 base speed pretty easily and gallade isn't quite as slow as other sweepers such as tyranitar and scizor...

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Tried that in Gen 4. Got raped repeatedly. Not making THAT mistake again, sorry.

saying it is outclassed by Roo is complete bullshit. Gallade has better type coverage, like OHKOing Gliscor at +1 with Ice Punch. Hell, Gallade is even a COUNTER to Roobushin.

Also, where is Choice Band?

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Saying it again: Gallade cannot use Drain Punch as effectively as others can. It's simply too frail and too slow to survive DPing on a Shandy or Gengar switch-in. As both usually run Scarfs, and tend to use STAB Shadow Ball, the only way Gallade survives is by switching, at which point the Bulk Up boost is lost anyway. Bulk Up by itself is interesting, though, so I'll try it out.

Gallade isn't completely useless against Gengar (or Shandera). With one bulk up and shadow sneak, Gallade can deal up to 86% of damage to Gengar. With or without one, it is a two hit KO (if the Gengar has 4 Def EV's, which is common). With two bulk ups, shadow sneak is a OHKO. So if you can predict the switch on Gengar, or get two bulk ups before, Gallade can take down Gengar. I'm not sure about Shandera, though. It usually has no defense investment, and only 4 HP EV's, so I'm pretty sure it's a two hit KO with or without a bulk up too.